Amnesty International has called on the Nigerian authorities to stop all executions, following the hanging of four prisoners in the West African country.
On Monday, Amnesty International said in a statement that it had received “credible reports that authorities in the state of Edo… have hanged four men in Benin City Prison on Monday — the first known executions in the country since 2006.”
“If confirmed, these executions mark a sudden, brutal return to the use of the death penalty in Nigeria, a truly dark day for human rights in the country,” Amnesty deputy director for Africa, Lucy Freeman, said in the statement.
The human rights organization urged Nigerian authorities to end all executions immediately and “return to the moratorium on executions in the country.”
“We oppose the death penalty in all cases without exception, as it is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment,” it said.
Henry Idahagbon, the justice commissioner in Edo State in southern Nigeria, verified the hanging of the four prisoners, who had been found guilty of either armed robbery or murder.
“The court gave the judgment this afternoon that the execution could go ahead and the prison authority went ahead,” Idahagbon said.
Over the past four years, violence in the west of Africaâ„¢s most populous country has claimed the lives of 3,600 people, including killings by the security forces.
On Saturday, thousands of Nigerians from villages in the northeast of the country reportedly fled the fighting between the military and Boko Haram militants.
Since mid-May, the Nigerian military has launched numerous airstrikes on Boko Haram training camps in the northeast of the country, forcing the fighters to leave the camps.
Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for a number of deadly gun and bomb attacks in various parts of Nigeria since 2009.
IA/AS
This article originally appeared on: Press TV